


Brought To My Senses

by orphan_account



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Friends to Lovers, Gambling Problems, Jean curses a lot fair warning, M/M, Rotating POV, Verbal Abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-10
Updated: 2013-10-15
Packaged: 2017-12-26 04:59:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/961837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jean's dad has a job that requires him to move a lot, and after having to pick up and leave his old town, he starts going to Wall Rose Secondary. Marco, Wall Rose's alpha choir kid, hears him sing in the hallway before school on the first day, and this sparks the first real friendship Jean has ever had. A friendship that has certain potential for growth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Welcome to Homeroom

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, we'll start with Jean's POV, and whenever you see "~~~~~" it means we switch to Marco. "-----" in the future will mean Jean's POV. It's set somewhere in North America, and I like the idea of Marco being a freckly singing nerd. So HA.
> 
> FYI, U-Haul is a North American moving company, and Such Great Heights is a great song.

I came to one decision long ago about myself, and it is that I, Jean Kirschtein, hate moving.

I hate that the houses I was constantly isolated in always had a slight musty cardboard scent, no matter where I was.

I hate all the little things. Trying to figure out a bike route to the nearest convenience store that wasn't filled with traffic or constantly clogged intersections. ( _Why the hell did these towns never have bike paths?_ ) Finding anything in my own room because the layout was always different. Worse was finding anything in the kitchen without being forced to ask somebody else. Goddamn.

Yeah, that shit was annoying. And I hated it. But more than that, I hate being nervous.

It's not really in my nature to be self-conscious on normal occasions, but standing in a bedroom that was still--despite being, in theory, mine, I guess--unfamiliar, trying to remember which of the boxes held my good jeans, I tried to calm the small knot growing in the pit of my stomach. It was the first day of school and I didn't know where the hell my pants were. _Great start Jean. Good show._

But in all honesty it wasn't the lack of acceptable clothing that was bugging me. You see, dealing with people I knew was one thing. The prospect of dealing with people I didn't was something that I, despite my oh-so healthy relationship with U-Haul, had never actually become used to.

Every single time it was basically the same, and honestly, the moves had started to become so predictable that I could script each of them out kind of like so...

Dad: "Oh, whoops son, there's money over in that area of the world. Let's go move so I can work there and make buildings and stuff. It'll be great! Woo hoo!"

Mom: "Okay whatever you want honey. It's not like I do anything important or my opinion matters."

Me: "I don't have any choice in the matter, so do whatever you want."

Movers: "Hey, are you interested in our customer loyalty program? Because wow..."

Me: "Are you fucking kidding me right now."

House: "Hahaha you can't find anything in me."

Me: "Goddamnit."

People at school: "Oh hi there we're not going to talk to you because we've already got established friend groups."

Me: "Screw you too. I'll just sit by myself away from you tools."

For some stupid reason, I stood in the middle of the room instead of actually doing anything. _How the hell was I actually going to find anything if I don't actually look_ , I figured, so I then got on my knees and actually opened the cardboard boxes, glanced quickly at the contents of each. "Shoes... socks... books... je- JEANS." The last I said a little too enthusiastically, before remembering that my parents were asleep and my mom was NOT a morning person. Laughing as I dug through the box, eventually I found the pair I'd wanted. I took them out of the box, examining them. A dark pair of denim Jeans, they were the only pair I had that actually fit me; most were a bit too short or too long or too large in the waist. The box stayed where it was; if there was anything I hated more than moving it was unpacking. My usual procedure was to take pieces of clothing out of the box one by one until they all got washed and put away where they actually belonged. It took months, but who cared. It's also a good way of weeding out clothes I don't wear anymore.

I tore off my black flannel pajama pants and threw the jeans on, looking in the mirror. I wasn't very tall, about average, but I'd never minded. It made it relatively easy to find pants, but I was kind of picky about the way I liked them. There's about a half inch area on my ankle that I accept for length; everything outside it just looks kind of weird. My hair was two-toned, light brown and almost black. This was something a hairdresser two towns ago did on impulse, and I'd kept the style as my own afterwords because I'd actually liked it. Finding a haircut I actually liked was weird; there are some fucking stupid barbers out there that are willing to do some ridiculous things to your scalp without your consent.

Turning around and putting on my shoes, I thought of what else I had to actually do. I'd already showered and had been too lazy to find the jeans before I walked into the bathroom that morning. I'd eaten, my lunch was in my bag, along with a binder and some pencils, my hair was dry and didn't look like crap, my phone and iPod were charged; this was really the last thing before I set off: everything else was finished.

"Victory," I whispered to myself as I swiftly took the stairs downstairs, which ended directly in front of the door. No one else was actually awake, so I just took my keys and left, locking the door behind me. My bike was leaning against a tree beside the house and while tipping it towards me with one hand I searched through my music for something to listen to on the way.

After finding a song that wasn't shit, (I really needed to clean this thing off, holy crap,) I actually looked around. Despite the pants incident I was still fairly early; the sun hadn't quite risen from the top of the trees and houses interfering with its light, making everything seem slightly blue. I welcomed the opportunity to get some shit done before I actually had to deal with anybody.

Kicking the pedal of my bicycle, I guided it down the tree-filled residential streets and past manicured lawns, avoiding thinking for the fifteen minutes until I reached the school. _Yep. I really am early_. Checking my watch, I cringed a little. _Eight am_. There was no way I'd find anyone really around. A bit earlier than anticipated, but this way I don't have to talk with anyone. It's too fucking early for that shit.

A bike rack was found, a bike was locked and a door was opened and then I was inside the school. Wall Rose Secondary wasn't really the largest school, but it was the only one in the town where I could finish the two-year courses I'd started in the town before this one. As such, there really wasn't another option if I didn't want a year of work to suddenly be useless, and if there's anything I hate more than moving or unpacking, it is wasting my time. (I hate a lot of things.)

Arrows printed on brightly colored paper marked a path for me to follow on my way to the office where I could pay my fees, get my locker and as a result get some of my shit organized, for what would probably be the only time that year. (I am absolute shit at keeping my locker clean. Same with my room and pretty much everything else.) "FOLLOW ME," they said, obnoxiously cheerful for the first Monday in September. _No one wants to be here. Why won't they just accept that instead of assaulting our retinas with neon cheerfulness_. Regardless, I followed the stupid papers until I made my way to where I needed to be.

Pushing open the glass door of the office, I walked to the desk, and, wanting to make my presence known, coughed. The secretary, a kind looking woman, mid-twenties, with reddish hair looked up from what looked to be a mountain of paperwork. The name plate beside her read 'Ms. Ral', and she smiled before asking me a very simple, "What do you need?"

Holding up a check I'd just dug out of my backpack, I replied with a clipped, "School fees? I think I have enough," I ran a hand through my hair before looking at the paper itself.

"45 dollars, right?" I hoped dad was right about that, I really didn't want to have to go back home and get another check, or worse, have to carry everything around with me all day.

"That's perfect." Thank god. "And your name please," the woman asked. "I don't think I've seen you before."

"Jean Kirschtein," I said. "I just moved to town about a week ago," I said with a sigh, handing Ms. Ral the piece of paper and leaning on the edge of the desk. She signed a few things, then pulled out another sheet from the stack with surprising speed and handed it to me. _How organized was this lady. Wow._

"Your locker number is on the top right, and it should be right near your homeroom, which is the number just below it," she said, pointing with a blue ballpoint pen to each of the numbers as she spoke. The woman then looked at an extremely long chart she had on her desk and wrote a small sequence on the paper in blue, slanted scrawl. "And this is your locker combination. Spin left twice, right once, and then left straight to the number. Have a nice day!" She then sat down and did some digging through the pile of papers, apparently looking for one in particular. "Springer," she said to herself, already lost in her work. "Where did you go..."

Seeing no reason to stick around, I walked out into the hallway, sticking my headphones in and clicking play. I checked the numbers on the lockers, before realizing that I was stupid and didn't even know what fucking locker was mine. Checking the paper, I saw the number 285. To the left of me... 375. Right... 380. Left it is. I walked down the hallway to my left, humming along to my music while stepping in rhythm, which was a habit I really couldn't seem to break. That and humming, I swear to god. A song by The Postal Service came along: Such Great Heights, and I hummed the melody, because at least there was nobody around to witness that habit. Taking a right turn, I checked the locker numbers again. 310. Getting close. Reaching the end of the hallway, I eventually found it. 285. Turning the dial as Ms. Ral had advised, I opened up my locker and threw my backpack onto the hook inside, then opened it up and pulled out a binder and pencils.

After taking a look around to check for potential witnesses, I started to sing softly. _It's only seven after eight, no one's here, and goddamnit, I want to sing. And no one can stop me. I'm a senior, if some kid tries to look at me weird, I can just step on them._

Looking at the piece of paper in my hand, I looked at the homeroom number. 28. Turning, I saw that it was just behind me, at the very corner of the hallway, before it proceeded to turn to the right.

Okay now what the hell do I do now, I thought. _Better take a look around I guess_ , I mused as I turned back the way I came, still singing softly as I walked, completely oblivious to the freckled boy who'd been listening from his locker just around the corner.

~~~~~

I loved the first day of school.

I loved getting there early and thinking in the empty hallways.

I loved fully organizing my locker while I had the opportunity. Putting old sticky notes holding past messages from friends in their rightful places on the locker door. Placing my textbooks--I had some two year courses and kept the textbooks over summer--along the locker's floor in such a way that I wouldn't have an issue finding any.

But most of all, I just liked the quiet, which was why I was surprised when I heard singing from just around the corner. First of all, it was rare for someone to arrive earlier than me. The school usually started filling up at about half past eight and then by nine everyone who was going to show up was pretty much there. I was THE early bird. He who caught the worm. He who got all of his things together with plenty of time to spare. And here was this guy, singing in my quiet hallway, not that I was possessive or anything, that'd be weird. _Besides, the guy was good,_ I thought to myself after closing my brown eyes and just listening for a second. It sounded sweet, but also kind of dark. The word I'd put to it was cloying, I guess. But man was it lovely.

Closing my eyes, I listened to the clear, baritone voice of someone around the corner for a few seconds, only to hear it fade with the sound of footsteps.

 _Who in the world was that guy,_ I contemplated, walking the few steps to the corner and peeking around them only to find the hallway empty. _I'd waited too long. Oh well._ I brought my hand up and scratched my nose, holding a half-empty backpack between my elbow and hip. Shrugging, I walked back to my empty locker, organizing the rest of my stuff. I looked into the small magnetic mirror I'd attacked to the locker door. My freckles stood out a lot due to a recent sunny spell, but my eyes had dark circles underneath them; my sleep cycle was kind of messed up because of work and stress and a bunch of things all at the same time. My black hair stuck out a bit at the front, so I combed my fingers downward through it until my bangs were in their usual symmetrical split. Finally, I finished and placed the backpack on the hook in his locker, then closed it, remembering to take the slip of paper Ms. Ral had given me with my combo and locker number, and walked towards the front door to wait, just wait for someone to show up.

Usually Annie was first, but the small, blonde and scary girl wasn't the greatest company. She seemed to be a nice person, but good lord I did not want to stay with her alone for more than five minutes. It wasn't necessarily that Annie was violent, or dressed in a scary way or was verbally abusive, it was that her existence seemed to consist of glares and less-than-enthused silence. If looks could kill, we'd have a genocide on our hands.

That look was directed towards me when she stepped through the door wearing a grey sweater and a frown. "Marco," she said, nodding in my direction.

"Hi Annie," I chirped, a bit higher than usual. _Why did my voice have to be so squeaky? Really?_ "Uh, welcome back." I flashed a grin with a bit too much teeth to be comfortable and a thumbs up, while my eyebrows betrayed my discomfort, turning upwards and wrinkling the space between them.

Annie just stared. "Right." She walked off, turning left, presumably towards the office. The school was built like a convoluted doughnut so you could actually get wherever you wanted by following the main hallway, the exceptions being the gym, the theater and the library, all of which had their own hallway that branched off in a different part of the school.

I breathed a sigh of relief as she left. I'd known she wasn't going to stick around, but it was still comforting to know for sure. Next to arrive would be, presumably, Armin, based on the last three years of high school. The boy usually arrived a little early, wanting to get his stuff put away ahead of time so he could talk with his friends Eren and Mikasa while they did what he'd already finished. Armin, a smart blonde kid with a kind disposition, was someone I actually would've loved to talk to, but more and more people started trickling into the school and I felt a little like I was in the way. I stepped around a few of the younger students who were panicking about where they were supposed to go--"Just follow the signs", I told them. "Follow the signs."--and, checking my watch, (eight twenty, we were supposed to be in their homerooms at quarter to nine,) I decided to just take a few laps around the school.

I wasn't the tallest person in the school by any means, only slightly taller than average, (I think Bertholdt helped the school meet its tallness quota,) but I was sure taller than many of the new students I saw walking through the halls that morning. Whenever I saw a kid struggling with a locker or looking lost or scared, I made a point of talking to them, helping them in any way I could. After all, it was the least I could do. I remembered being one of those kids, walking through the halls, scared about what on earth everyone would think of me and what my teachers would be like, not to mention another thousand things.

Before leaving each of them I made sure I knew their names. I tried to remember them as hard as I could; when I was younger, an older student had helped me open my stuck lock my first day, and had greeted me the next morning by name. "Marco! Tell me if you need any more help with that lock, okay?" It had made me feel so special, like this was a place where people would like me, odd as that was. I'd had pretty low self-esteem, and had never forgotten it. Now that I was a senior, I felt responsible for each and every one of those freshmen as I walked through the hall, almost as a way of paying that older kid back.

I passed many of my friends: Ymir leaning against a locker while Christa placed some books gingerly into one beside her, Connie telling Sasha a joke that made her cringe and nearly choke on whatever she'd been eating, Reiner looking as if he was running late. I didn't speak to any of them, and kept finding myself humming the song that guy from that morning had sung. I didn't really mind.

So I walked through the hallways, helping kid after kid until I looked at my watch another time. eight forty, time to go. My homeroom would be the same as it had been the last three years; the school never changed them. Room 28, with Mr. Levi. Turning a few corners--right, right, a short jaunt left and then a right, past the office, right and at the end of the hall--I eventually arrived at homeroom, wondering if the route I'd taken was actually the shortest and if I could've saved myself some time by going the other way. _In the end, it doesn't really matter._ I still had a bit of time, it was eight forty three now.

Walking into the classroom, I sat at a table near the front. Mr. Levi always stayed in his back room until the last possible minute. There was a lot of speculation as to what happened back there. As the head of the math department, he probably just had a lot of grading to do, but often when I knocked on the door for some help or a question, the short, dark-haired man was simply sitting there reading a book, or drinking coffee. The guy put up with a lot. Not only was he a math teacher, which is a moniker that is likely to get you some flak from the student body, he was also extremely short, standing at just 5'3". Don't let that fool you, pull a short joke and you are as good as dead. The man was not above making your life difficult, and detentions were often handed out to other students classes for jokes at his expense. I'd never told one, never even thought about it. I liked the guy too much. He did care about his students, which was why, despite his cold demeanor, he was one of my favorite teachers. No one ever used the 'Mr'; everyone that had ever had a course with him just called him Levi, so much so that it had begun to feel like a first name.

The room had just a few more students, some of the grade 11s and 10s that I recognized from homeroom before and some students that I supposed were the youngest additions to my homeroom. Honestly, I didn't take that good of a look; I placed my things on the desk, started doodling on my hand with a pen, and stuck my iPod headphones in until the bell rang, signaling the beginning of the national anthem.

Standing, I twiddled my thumbs for the duration of the song--don't get me wrong, it isn't a bad song, it's just the school uses a really lame version--and sat down just as Mr. Levi emerged from the back of the class. "Hello, students," the man said sternly. "Welcome, or welcome back to, Wall Rose Secondary School." Sitting at the front desk and crossing his hands in front of him, Levi sat down. "For those of you who do not know me, I am Mr. Levi and I will be your homeroom teacher for the rest of your high school lives." His face remained absolute stone as he started listing school rules and procedures, warnings about late assignments and skipping classes. It continued for a good 20 minutes. "...those found absent from a class without parental consent ten times will meet with the teacher, and they will discuss withdrawal from the course."

After that, he shoved the small book he'd been lecturing from away from him on the desk. "And now that that's over, let's actually get on with attendance. When I call your name, I'd like each of you to come up to my desk and receive your timetable for the rest of the year. Marco Bodt," he said, holding out the piece of paper. Looking up from my hand-doodles that had begun to resemble mountains, I crossed the small area between me and the desk to get my schedule. Levi glanced at it before passing it to me. "It'll be nice to see you in advanced pre-calculus again this year, Marco. We had quite a few drop the course over the summer."

I simply nodded, smiled, took the paper and sat down again. _I wonder who dropped. Probably Connie or Eren_. Those two were probably doing the worst out of the whole class; Connie was a bit slow to new concepts and Eren tended to fall asleep in class, often waking five minutes before class in a cold sweat.

It went on like that for a while. Name after name went by, I smiled at everyone that walked by me, and Mr. Levi pointed out each student that had a math class with him that year. "Jean Kirshctein," he called, and expecting to see one of the new kids in the younger years based on the fact I didn't know the name, was surprised to instead see a tall lanky guy walking towards the desk. _Grade 11, or 12,_ he thought to himself. _He looks older._ "It seems you'll be having advanced pre-calc with me as well, though I don't recognize you. You've already completed the first half of the course, correct?"

"Yeah," said the teen, with an apathetic voice. "We completed half the material, for sure. I'm not sure if we went in order." He squinted for a second and his angular eyebrows crinkled as he thought. "Yeah I don't think we actually did." Raking his hand through his hair, which I noted as remarkably two toned, almost black and short at his neck and a light brown at the top that was longer than the rest.

Levi nodded. "Neither did we." Turning his head, he calmly said "Marco," pulling me out of my examination of the guy named... _Jean. Yes. Jean Kirschtein is what Levi called him._

"Uh, yeah," I said, turning to the math teacher, not liking my thoughts interrupted.

"Would you talk with... Jean, here, and see which units he's covered compared to us?" The short man tilted his head to the side, raising one eyebrow as he spoke.  
"Sure," I said, looking at Jean and nodding. "Do you have a spare period at all today?" As far as I'm concerned, spares are the best gifts ever from the administration. They were great for getting things done, if you were like me and have very little free time.

Levi handed the new guy his schedule for reference. "One in third period, if I'm reading this right," he said, staring at the paper, furrowing his eyebrows again. "What about you?"

  
I checked the paper I'd placed in front of me, reading the time table. "So do I." Smiling, I remembered something. "Oh, you probably don't know where the library is..." I bit the corner of my lip, thinking of a solution. Lip-biting was a bit of a bad habit of mine, and ended up making lip chap a necessary constant in my pockets. When my lips got dry and I bit them, they bled and that was never pleasant. When I came up with an idea about the library a few seconds later, my face brightened. "Just meet me here at the start of third, and I'll show you where it is," I said, smiling. "We don't have math until fourth period, after lunch, so that should be fine."

"Gotcha," Jean said, while folding up his schedule and heading back to his desk in the back corner, I watched him. He seemed like a nice guy.

How didn't I notice him. That was what I got for not paying attention.

Levi continued with attendance, finishing with a grade ten named Adam that I didn't really know. "The bell will ring in approximately ten minutes for you to continue to your second period class. You may talk if you wish, and you do not need to come back to this classroom until the first day of second semester unless it is announced at some point." He pushed himself up from the desk. "I'll be in my back room if anyone needs me."

I stood, eventually wandering away from my desk towards the back of the room, where Sasha, Mikasa and Jean were seated. All of the seniors were divided up into each classroom, so there were only a few of them there. It made more sense for me to talk to Mikasa or Sasha--Mikasa really didn't like Sasha so it was usually my job in homeroom to keep her from doing something mental--but something made me turn and I walked up to Jean's desk. He had one headphones sitting in his ears and was doodling on a crisp sheet of loose-leaf. "Hi," I said.

Jean doodled, apparently not hearing me. I got it; I'd been caught many a time with headphones in, not paying attention. Connie liked to joke that trying to pull me out of my music was like trying to wake the dead. So instead of speaking again, I just tapped the guy on the shoulder.

The other teen was really startled. "God da-I'm sorry, how long were you standing there," Jean asked, embarrassed.

"About five seconds," I said, chuckling. "Can I sit down?";

"Uh, sure," Jean said, sounding a little confused. "Marco, right?" Jean asked, shuffling his seat over to make room. His voice was deeper than mine, and the way he said my name made it sound almost richer.

"Yup, Marco Bodt at your service, and you are Jean Kirschtein," I said, smiling. _Yeah, that's right. I remembered._

"Good memory, freckles," Jean said, raising an eyebrow.

I smiled. "Always glad to be of service," said, giving a small bow. I improvised my next sentence; I really hadn't had an idea of what to talk about when I walked over. "So, what class do you have next? Since you're new, do you know where any of your classes are?"

Jean shifted, pulling the paper out of the back of his jeans and unfolded it. "Uh... I've got Biology. Ms. Zoe, apparently. Room 15." He looked up at me. "What about you?"

"Same," I said, just as the bell rang. "We'll go together then." I stood up, humming softly. That song was still stuck in my head.


	2. The Two Week Rule

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marco and Jean have an interesting time in Ms. Hanji Zoe's biology class. The cat comes out of the bag that Jean can sing, and Marco is practically over the moon. Afterwards, Jean admits some of the patterns of moving that Marco is determined to not follow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY SO A LITTLE FORMATTING INFO.  
> When they're writing notes back and forth, **bold** denotes Marco's writing and  underlined denotes Jean's writing. All the italics represent the thoughts of the person whose perspective we're viewing this from. 
> 
> As with last time, ~~~~~ means Marco, and ----- means Jean.

~~~~~  
As Jean and I walked through the hallway, I took an effort to show him around. Zoe's class was nearly on the other side of the school, so I might as well have taken the opportunity. "So, welcome to Rose," I had said to him as we'd left. I intended to make that word 'welcome' really clear.

We walked the opposite way I'd come to the biology lab, and as we passed anything important or a classroom he'd have, (we had most of our classes together, it turns out, with the exception of English--I had it fifth period while he had advanced physics--so really it was more like 'This is where we'll be a few hours.' I chattered on the way to Zoe's classroom, filling the silence with whatever I really could. Jean nodded a lot, looking at his feet.

At one point he had nearly walked straight into a freshman; I'd elbowed him to snap him out of it just in time. "Fucking hell. Sorry," he said to the small blonde girl. She looked terrified. Granted, Jean was probably pretty intimidating to her; she was almost two feet shorter than he was, and he, probably a reaction to the fact that he'd been zoned out beforehand, admittedly, a little surprised.

She froze, then walked around us. I turned to him. "You really have to pay a bit more attention, Jean," I said, and I realized my voice sounded mildly disappointed. _Come on, Marco. You're not his mom._

Jean picked up on it, his hand going up to his hair again. Wow, he did that a lot. "I'm sorry. It's just been a bit of an interesting morning."

Rounding a corner, my eyebrows furrowed. "In what way," I asked. _There hasn't exactly been much morning... It's only four after ten,_ I thought, checking my watch.

"Well," Jean started as our steps synchronized and we continued further and further down the hall, "First of all I couldn't find pants this morning, then I got here way too early." He paused, and something in my head clicked. "Also, this guy named Conan? Conrad? 'Con' something. "

"Kind of short? Shaved head?"

"Yeah."

"Connie."

"Okay, well Connie talked with me for like ten minutes about a TV show I'd never heard of, and this girl, Sasha, bet him she could fit an entire fucking baked potato in her mouth at one time, which she totally did. Who even does that? Really?" He spoke with his hands as said did this, half amused and half probably wondering what in the world Sasha was thinking. "Un-fucking-believable."

"That's just, kind of what Sasha does. I once saw her down an entire milkshake, three burgers and two large fries in a total of about two minutes."

I shook my head, chuckling, then checked my watch yet another time. "Come on, we're going to be late," I said. Class was just around the corner, but checking my watch again--I kept it synchronized with the bells at school--we only had about twenty seconds until the bell rang. "We're almost there, but I really don't like being the last one to sit down."

Turning the corner, Jean read the plaque above the door. "Zoe. This is it."

I held the door open for him while he walked inside, standing awkwardly while I closed the door. "Let's sit over here," I said, pointing to a table in front of Annie, Reiner and Bertholdt, who all seemed to be discussing something under their breath. It was the only empty one left. "The tables sit three and there's no way anyone else will come in this late. Unless you want to sit with potato girl." I pointed at Sasha, sitting alone at a table across the room, trying to balance a ruler on her head to no avail.

Jean cringed. "Hell, no thank you." We sat down and I placed my binder in front of me. Jean kept his in his arms and leaned his chin on it as the bell rang. "What is this teacher like, anyways? A hard-ass? Lots of homework? One of those ones that's a great person that actually teaches you nothing?" He made a different face at each description, ranging from oblivious to stern to just plain butt-hurt. It was actually kind of funny.

But even as I chuckled at his question, I thought a bit. _I actually don't really know how to answer that._  "Zoe is... interesting, to say the least. I guess you'll have to see for yourse-"

My sentence was interrupted by the teacher herself, whirling in from her back office. "HELLO EVERYONE," she borderline yelled. Now I remembered the adjective I should've put to her; Zoe was kind of crazy.

The lady was absolutely mental. She was also hilarious, and arguably one of the best teachers in the school. The look she got whenever anyone asked her a biology question was almost terrifying; the way with which she took the knowledge was absolutely ridiculous. Ms. Zoe really loved bio. Loved it. Obsessive.

That being said, Zoe was a bit put out that she couldn't dive straight into the material they were going to be covering that year. I liked the class, but the thought of outlining cellular respiration the first day back made me a little queasy, so I was glad that the first day of the semester was always a walk in the park. Pretty much every class is the same; teachers are required to read out what the course actually consists of, or the outline.

"Okay, so as you've probably seen on your schedule--and if not you're in the wrong room--welcome to Grade 12 Biology!" The woman's brown hair was disheveled, and her glasses crooked; it looked a little like even the thought of the class had made her excited. I liked that she was so enthusiastic about the subject, but there were times that she turned into an absolute mess about the nervous system. "My name is Ms. Zoe, but you can call me Hanji if you want to," she said with a wink.

I took a piece of looseleaf out of my binder and wrote on it, passing it to Jean. **'No one ever does.'**

I watched Jean read the words, written in black pen and smirked. He pulled a pencil out of his binder and wrote a reply in spiky, heavily slanted writing. 'God this lady is... enthusiastic.' He pushed the paper back towards me.

**'She's cool though, you'll get used to her.'**  I didn't want to badmouth Zoe; crazy as she was, she was legitimately a good teacher and a nice person. As an afterthought, I added, **'You said you were here early today. How early are we talking about?'**  Something was bugging me about that. I passed the paper back.

He glanced at it. 'You just say that because you can't take not being nice to people.' He glanced up towards Zoe, who was taking beginning to take attendance, and continued writing. I'm at the beginning of the list. I should probably be paying attention, I thought to myself, looking up from the page.

I was just in time. "Marco," she said. I raised my hand, then turned back towards to page to see what Jean had written. 'Around 8:10? Why do you ask?'

I thought for a second, then leaned over to write, saving the trouble of passing the paper back and forth. **'I don't really k-'** I scribbled the sentence out as I realized what had been nagging at me. **'Were you around the hallway near Levi's room this morning? I usually get here early and I heard someone else there.'** Looking up at Zoe while Jean wrote his answer, I poked him. She was having a word with Bert, whose last name, Hoover, was only a few letters away from K. Eren Jaeger, a brown-haired boy who always stayed with his friend Armin and his adopted sister, Mikasa, was before him, and he raised his hand, continuing to talk softly with the his friends at his table under his breath.

He looked at me, slightly vexed, and I pointed towards the teacher with one finger, keeping my hand low near the table. "Jean Kirschtein," she said, looking up, her eyes setting on the boy beside me. "Judging by the fact I have no idea who this guy here is, you are probably the kid in question!" She practically bounced over to the table we were sitting at, and I snatched the paper off the desk, turning it over and putting it under my hands, which I placed in front of me. "Welcome to biology!" Her grinning, manic face was about five inches in front of him, and he leaned backwards all he could without falling backwards or hitting the table behind us, and his face contorted into one of the weirdest expressions of surprise I'd ever seen. Meanwhile, I was trying to stifle my laughter. _Dork._ Luckily Zoe ignored me, pulling back into a laugh at his expression just like I nearly had. "DID I SCARE YOU?" she asked between ugly snorting noises. Sasha across the room started laughing, and I heard most of the class chuckling.

"Uh, no." Jean blushed, turning, looking at me, then back at Hanji. His face read something along the lines of a cry for help. I leaned back slightly, crossing my arms, leaving the paper on the desk face down. _Nope, I want to watch this._

Zoe finally ran out of laughter. "Regardless, welcome to my class, and the school. You are new, aren't you?" Her head tilted slightly as she asked the question.

Jean finally shifted his weight back forwards to a slightly hunched posture. "Just moved to town about a week ago," he said.

The biology teacher nodded, calming down. "Okay, well, you're in good hands." she looked at me.

I smiled. "Uhm, thank you?" Zoe went back to her desk and continued reading off of her attendance.

Jean let out a breath that he'd apparently been holding, took the paper from my side of the desk, flipped it over and scrawled on it. 'Hooooly shit, this lady is nuts. But yeah I was here this morning.'

I looked sideways at him. **'Yeah, we all had to experience something like that when we first had a class with her. Mildly terrifying. But we all have our lockers around our homerooms, you know that, right?'**

His eyebrows crinkled and his hazel eyes narrowed a little bit as he looked at the paper. 'Yeah, and?'

I actually grinned while I wrote the next reply. **'Do you, perchance, sing?'** _I've got him._

Jean's face pulled into an over-exaggerated frown. 'You did NOT hear me singing in the hallway this morning. Nope. You didn't. I checked for people.' He shook his head for a few times and shrugged. His body language gave the picture of a resounding 'nope'.

**'Did you think to check around the corner?'** I grinned. I was having far too much fun with this, and Jean's reactions were fantastic.

Jean read what I wrote and slammed his head on the table softly, as if he was trying to convey the action but not actually hurt himself or draw any attention. S _ee what I mean? Fantastic._ 'How much did you hear.'

**'Enough to know that you're really good.'** I looked up and thanked Ms. Zoe as she placed two class outlines on our desk. I placed one on Jean's side of the table and clipped one inside of my binder, not even bothering to look at the paper before I closed it.

I looked back, and Jean was putting his outline in his binder, keeping it on his lap. The paper in front of us read, in Jean's writing, **'Can we please just pay attention now?'**

Sighing, I obliged, opening my binder yet again. I wasn't going to let this go.

It was, quite possibly, the slowest class I'd ever had.

 

\-----

 

This was kind of weird.

Don't get me wrong, it's great actually having someone talk to you when you've just moved. It's just the fact that, whoa, someone was talking to me, and they didn't insist on any weird questions and actually seemed to care.

I really liked this Marco guy. The way he actually bothered showing me around, wrote notes with me in class, laughed when Zoe had me in goddamn interrogation mode. Okay, I know she only asked me one question, but still. The lady kind of creeped me out. But more than that I liked the way he could've talked to anyone else but instead went spoke with me in homeroom instead, because hell if I'd have found my way to Ms. Zoe's classroom on my own. I was absolute shit at finding things.

So as we walked over to what I presumed, at the end of the walk, would be the library, I felt I had to actually say something that WAS NOT related to the singing incident that he'd apparently overheard. Walking a half step behind him so I didn't end up turning the wrong way, I weaved between younger kids on my way down the hallway. "Uhm," I said, coughing a bit. "I just kind of want to say thank you for actually seeming to give a fuck."

Marco turned his head towards me, smiling, forcing his freckles a little further towards his eyes. "Well, uh," One of his hands flew to the back of his head, and the other went into the air like he was at a loss as to what to do. "You're welcome, I guess?" His head turned as we rounded a corner, watching so he didn't walk into anybody. "How are you liking it so far?"

"I'm going to be honest with you," I said. If there was anything I was good at, if you exclude my parents, it was being honest. "Zoe is fucking nuts. Levi seemed okay. Kind of a hardass, maybe, but fine. All in all, fine is actually the most accurate word I can put to it, I think." Marco rounded another corner, bringing us past my locker and then his.

It seemed it triggered a memory, because Marco turned to me with a grin. "So. About that singing of yours."

I actually fucking groaned when he mentioned it. "Can we not talk about it? I'm embarrassed enough at this point, man." I walked a little faster until we were actually walking side by side, since I saw what must've been the library, judging by the large glass doors, just ahead. Marco held the door open for me when we got there.

"Nope. There is no avoiding this topic. You've been heard by exactly the wrong person, Jean." I didn't like the weird look in his eyes that he got when he said that; a weird feeling dug its way into my stomach. "Did you, or did you not sing in that hallway this morning."

I sighed, walking through the doorway, into your typical high school library. It was, admittedly, a little small. "Fine. Yes I was singing this morning."

Marco smiled, then spoke softly. "Did the song you sang sound anything like this?" He hummed a few bars of Such Great Heights as he led me to a table near the back of the library that sat unoccupied, placing his binder down and sitting down.

"Fuck. Fine. Yes, it did." I frowned, still not really sure where the hell this was going. I mean, I could sing, I guess? My singing voice was generally reserved for bike rides at times no one could hear me, my room when no one was home, and the shower. Basically, if no one was there. Not in the presence of others, like this morning. "I still don't see the point of this damn exercise."

Pulling the black pen from biology from his pencil case and writing math terms on a piece of looseleaf, he glanced up and grinned. "The point is you happen to be looking at the choir president of Wall Rose."

My hand flew to my face. "Oh please god no," I mumbled as I sat across from him.

Marco's hand flew up and grabbed my wrist, pulling my hand from my cheek, and his face had turned, in just a second, from grin to frown. "'Oh please god' what." He drew his hand back, crossing his arms. "I mean, I know it's the most 'manly',"--he drew airquotes with his hands before crossing his arms over his chest again--"thing in the world, in fact my dad really does NOT enjoy the fact that I'm in it at all, but it's a great way to actually make friends, which," uncrossing his arms, he reached for a pen and continued writing terms, "might, for a new person such as yourself, be kind of useful." He looked up at me from his binder, a frank look on his face that didn't seem to fit him very well.

"Whoa whoa whoa there buddy." One of my hands subconsciously reached up and started to tug at the longer pieces of light brown hair at the top of my head, as it did when I was nervous. I forced the hand downward again. "I wasn't saying choir wasn't manly or anything, it's just I really don't like the prospect of actually singing in front of people at all. The only people who've ever actually heard me sing are the odd squirrel along my bike route and you. Not exactly the best track record as far as far as singing publicly goes." I frowned.

Marco's smile returned. _Thank God_. "No experience necessary, my good friend. We wouldn't force you to do anything but actually show up if you decided to join." His voice turned slightly pleading, and he looked a bit embarrassed. His eyes were downcast. "But, well, to be honest, we don't have many guys, and your voice would really be appreciated..." He looked up again, and his index finger brushed his upper lip. "And I wasn't lying when I said, or I guess wrote, that you were really good." He blinked slowly, and pursed his lips. "I'm not going to force you into anything." He put the pen down again, laying his hands flat on the table. "All I ask is that you just go today, and if you want to join, join. If you don't, don't."

I nodded, still kind of unsure. "I know you're not trying to be really pushy with this, and I appreciate that." I nodded. "It's just that I'd actually like the time to focus on homework and stuff."

"What," Marco said, a little confused. "Not really an 'eating' or 'talking to friends' sort of person?"

"Uh," I cringed. "I move around a lot."

"So?"

"So, I usually don't have friends to talk or eat with."

"Oh." He grew quiet. "I wonder why. You seem like a really nice guy." He smiled at me, and his face was all freckles and teeth. _How many fucking freckles does this guy have, anyways?_ "Even if you do flip out at the mention of singing."

"Well," I explained, best as I could. "Usually, what happens is one or two people talk to my for a while because the new kid is always the novelty." He nodded. "After that two weeks is up, people usually just kind of float back to their little cliques, pretend nothing happened and that I don't exist. Pretty formulaic, really." I debated about telling him the joke about the U-Haul membership that I'd come up with while trying to find my pants that morning, but that was probably a bad idea; it was kind of stupid, now that I was thinking about it.

"Jean," Marco said, looking at me with a serious look on his face. "Do you really think I am going to just stop talking to you after two weeks? Because that is what you seem to be implying here."

I blinked. _Shit, I didn't want to insult him. Did I? Shit_. My head tried to run damage control for a second. "Uh, that's not what I meant, I swear to god. I'm just saying that that is how things usually go." I frowned. "I didn't mean to offend you."

Marco frowned, like he knew what I was trying to say. "I get what you mean, I guess, but don't just presuppose that because I'm talking to you after you've just moved, you are never going to see me after two weeks have passed." He sighed, and then smiled as wide as his face could, I think. "I'll wait at least a month to resolve whether or not you're a total nerd."

I felt myself grin. "Fine. I'll go to choir ONE TIME. When is it, anyways?"

The teen across the table turned official. "Three lunches a week. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The A Capella--that means completely without instruments--and vocal jazz choir practices on Thursdays after school. The first day is today." The guy looked downright giddy. "Right after this period is over! I'll show you the way there, and then we'll eat and go to math, okay?"

"Okay," I said, smiling. "I think I can deal with that. Now let's actually do whatever the hell we're supposed to be doing."

So we sat there, talking about asymptotic functions and solving different kinds of triangles until the bell rang, which left an odd warm feeling in my stomach.

When the bell rang, we walked to choir together, where Marco seemed to basically run the show, and there were more people than I had expected. I sat near Armin, who I recognized from my biology class. Mikasa and Eren were beside him on the other side. "Hi," I said, just before Marco stood up in front of the room full of people. He had a small speech before they began.

"Alright guys, well how was summer?"

There was some cheering and I swear to god I heard that Connie guy hell "I LOVE YOU MARCO."

"Well, glad to hear all of that. Who here is a returning singer?"

A lot of people, including Armin beside me, raised their hands. Marco clapped, smiling. "Wonderful, guys! It's great to see you guys back." He clasped his hands together. "Now who here is new?" Some people, mostly smaller kids, raised their hands. I kept mine down out of some sort of shame. Marco glared at me, raising one eyebrow. I shook my head, intending to keep it down, but Armin got me.

The short blonde kid grabbed my wrist and put my hand up, laughing. "Don't be so embarrassed." I shook off his hand and kept my arm in the air, sighing, seeing the freckled boy at the front of the room smile, nodding at Armin, who nodded right back.

"That is absolutely fantastic." The rest of the older kids whooped, and Marco continued on. "Well, some of you may be here for different reasons. Some of you may be here because you want a class credit. You'll get that, and that's fine if that's what you need." He smiled. "Some still may like to sing. Ample opportunity! Sign up for Vocal Jazz on the board outside if you want even more." He gestured towards the door, and shot a pointed glance at me. I rolled my eyes at him. "Others, still, may have been forced by a friend or family member to show up." _Yeah. And I'M one of them. Goddamnit Freckles._ "You should thank them, because if they have done so, it means they're trying to extend a little bit of family here. Choir at Wall Rose is somewhere you can make friends among all the weird people and have a big bunch of crazy brothers and sisters that will always be here." The guy's face softened, and he looked at me when he said that. _Oh shit, the guy actually does care._ I was actually kind of taken aback. "So, if you treat us like family, we'll repay the favor. Welcome to choir, and let's make beautiful music together." There was a round of applause as Marco walked over and sat down beside me. 

Oddly enough, Ms. Ral from the office the day before stood up from across the room and got up in front of the huge group of kids. I whispered over to Jean. "I thought she was the secretary."

"The teachers all take turns with that; Ms. Ral is the music teacher here normally. Now shush," he said to me, smiling. "She's trying to talk."

After introducing herself, Ms. Ral got Marco, Armin, Sasha and Mikasa up to hand out pieces of paper. _Another outline_. I sighed heavily as Marco finished handing papers to his designated portion of the room, came back with two papers, and sat back down beside me. "This is the point where you can stop technically caring," he whispered to me.

We sat there as Ms. Ral went through it, and, as promised, left together and ended up eating lunch with Sasha and Connie. Connie at one point stole Sasha's bag of chips. "Please remind me to never try that," I said, chuckling, to Marco, who was laughing as we watching Sasha climb all over him in an attempt to get them back.

Math was fine; during third, Marco and I'd established that we'd covered basically the same units. I wasn't worried; Levi seemed like a decent guy, once you stripped back the thick layer of rules.

In physics, I sat by myself. Being by myself suddenly felt a lot more lonely than it had before.

Two weeks passed. I kept going to choir, and Marco and I still ate lunch together every day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THROWBACK TO THE U-HAUL JOKES. I'm sorry, I'm lame and I really liked it. 
> 
> Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. It's looking like writing until 2 in the morning is going to become a common thing... I think I'll make Sunday nights (for those in the western hemisphere, anyways) my upload time, though, like tonight, it may end up being early early Monday morning. Alas. T'is such sweet sorrow.
> 
> Constructive criticism is always accepted!


	3. Rainbow Road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jean and Eren have a bit of an interesting time in biology class, and Jean has his first sleepover. Marco learns that Jean is freaking AWFUL at Mario Kart, but the day doesn't really end how either of them wanted it to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy man I am so sorry about how late this chapter was. I've been ridiculously busy. Alas. But here you go.

Three weeks into my first semester, I learned a few things. One, one does not get used to Hanji Zoe. Two, Armin is a cool dude. Three.

I fucking hate Eren Jaeger. But we'll get to that later.

So that Thursday, we were sitting there in bio class, like usual. I was at our table and Marco was beside me, chattering about the fact that he actually had the weekend off by some fluke of luck, which meant one thing.

"We need to hang out," he said, turning to me, strangely seriously. "This is a very rare opportunity, and I want to take advantage of it." It was true. Marco worked pretty much constantly. It was for university, he said. That shit's expensive, and I kept telling him he'd for sure get some sort of scholarship--turns out he was damn smart, not the best at math, but man he could put his English class (except for Armin, who was a fucking genius) to shame, or so Bertholdt had told me--but he always shrugged me off. Oh well. Anyways, he put his hand on my shoulder, and smiled. "What do you want to do?"

I thought for a second, one, about the hand on my shoulder, two, about what I wanted. The second thought came to me pretty much instantly, because hell, there was something I had in mind that I'd never, EVER been able to do before. "Let's have a sleepover," I said. _Please say yes. Please say yes._

He smiled, putting his hands on the table and leaning back a bit, stretching. "Sure!" He settled back in upright position, his smile fading slightly, a bit of an odd look in his eye. "Can it be at your house though? My Dad's having some people over."

"Sure," I said. "But you know what, you're going to have to teach me what the hell to do at these things. I've never actually had one before." I knew Marco wasn't going to mock me for it, he'd been great about everything else, but at the same time I was still a little skittish to tell him. Embarrassed, actually. _I mean, I am seventeen, nearly an adult, and I haven't had a fucking sleepover before. Like hell that's normal._

His brown eyes softened. "Well, I'll tell you what we'll do. What do you have for multiplayer video games, because if you don't have any we can borrow some from somebody else." He shrugged. "I don't really have any, so we're out of luck on that front."

I thought for a second. "They were never really much good to me, but I think I have a copy of Mario Kart somewhere that we can use." I'd played it with my cousins a few times when we lived somewhat near them. They'd brought it and I, like the shitty forgetful person I was, never really gave it back. "That cool?" I picked at my thumbnail, then looked at him, and the look on his face was ridiculous. Like he was trying to be scary, but ridiculous nonetheless. Marco really didn't have the capacity to be scary, at least to me. The guy, I'd discovered after a few weeks of seeing him help people do pretty much everything without even batting an eyelash, was a kitten.

"Perfect," he cackled, putting me in a gentle headlock, nearly pulling me off of my chair and into his lap. "Do you know what this means?"

Honestly, I really couldn't think with his arm wrapped around my neck like that. "Uh, no," I squeaked, suddenly very aware of my back. "What." He was warm. My entire torso was up against his chest and I could feel him relax as he let me go, releasing me to sit like an average human being.

He looked me straight in the eyes with a straight face. The guy was downright giddy, like Mario Kart was pretty much the best thing I could've told him. All I could really remember was choosing Bowser (because fuck yeah, Bowser is the best,) and losing really really badly to my cousin Sara. It was fucking brutal. Marco's chin raised a little bit, and he finished his thought. "I will kick your butt on Rainbow Road."

I was, admittedly, confused, as I had really no idea what that meant, but I really didn't have time to think about it before Ms. Zoe walked out from the back and started talking. "So guys, we've got some stuff to do today! We'll be doing..." She reached the desk, and pulled some boxes out from under it. "A lab!" She started placing one on each of our desks, starting with ours. I reached to the top of the box, but was stopped by my bio teacher. "No peeking." Marco shrugged. And I rolled my eyes. _This is going to be stupid, probably._

She then walked behind one and put a box on Bert, Annie and Reiner's desk. Bert draped his long arms overtop of it and Reiner peeked through a hold in its side. Annie didn't really seem to care. I didn't blame her.

Armin, Mikasa and Eren's table got one too, leaving Christa and Ymir, who sat at another table near the front, and Sasha who still sat by herself without them.

I poked the box, pushing it a few inches across the table. _Meh._

Hanji walked back towards her desk and pulled out some papers. "Well, what we're doing today relates to the ecology unit we've been working on!" That made sense. Why the hell would we do a lab on anything else when we'd been working on the ecology for almost three weeks? "Now, everyone, open your boxes!"

I sat back and let Marco pull the lid off of our box, then watched as, confused, the freckle-faced kid pulled out a bag of popped popcorn, an envelope, some chopsticks and a pair of tweezers. "What the-" He didn't finish the sentence, instead just shaking his head.

"I dunno," I muttered, looking around at what everyone else had.

Bert's table had a small fishbowl, a little net, a pair of tongs and a little bowl. "What the fuck," Reiner said, squinting his eyes at the stuff.

Armin's table had a big piece of bark on it, that looked like it was covered in rice. They also had a pair of tweezers, a weird looking, pointy pair of tongs, and chopsticks. Eren looked at Armin, and Armin shrugged, whispering something to him. Eren nodded slowly.

Meanwhile, Zoe was writing something on the board. "These will be your lab groups for today," she said, putting a cap on a black write-erase marker, letting us read her writing, which was a relative scrawl compared to the average teacher. It read like this:

1\. Annie, Reiner, Bertholdt and Mikasa.  
2\. Sasha, Christa and Ymir.  
3\. Armin, Eren, Marco and Jean.

I could hear Ymir grunt from across the room, and saw Mikasa silently get up and walk to the desk behind us, a bit of a sour look on her face. The girl rarely strayed from Eren and Armin's sides. From what I could tell she was kind of overprotective. Pretty--her long hair was lovely, but she seemed really obsessive. She glared at me and Marco, as if we'd stolen them.

Armin and Eren got up and walked over to our desk, leaving Christa, Ymir and Sasha to congregate around theirs. "Welcome to the table," Marco said, opening his arms.

"Enjoy your stay," I said, looking over our materials, changing the subject. "I still don't understand what the hell we're going to be doing with popcorn," I half-asked, looking up at our mad scientist of a bio teacher.

She smiled, and by smiled I mean turned into a shark because by god that face. Marco had said I would get used to her but lord knows this lady still reeked of crazy. "I am very glad you asked that." She placed four papers on our table, and four more on each of the other ones with odd items on them.

Christa raised her hand. "Yes, Christa."

The little blonde girl tilted her head. "There are only three of us here."

Zoe just waved her off. "They're just instructions. You'll get to go to all of the labs, so the other groups with four will each need a set to look at."

"So, anyways." She went back to the front and sat on her desk, kicking her feet like a small child. "What we're studying here is a little bit of evolution. We've got a number of different labs here, and each of them deals with a different property of a beak. Your job is to figure out which of the beaks (or tweezers, or chopsticks or whatever) works the best for each of the tasks you've been given on your sheets!" She stuck her hands up in the air. "Well, get started!"

I went to look over the sheet, but Armin was a step ahead of me. The blonde kid looked around at us and told us what to do. "What we're doing is throwing popcorn, and seeing how we can catch it using the three different,"--he used airquotes--"'beaks'."

I felt the need to raise my hand for a split second, but ended up just saying what I was thinking. "Well, how are we supposed to measure which one does the best?"

Eren spoke up. "We have to set a timer and see how many we catch within a certain amount of time, obviously."

I looked at the paper. It actually didn't say anything about that, just to study the amount caught relative to time. "Well, if you'd read your damn sheet, you'd know that that's actually not true at all and you're making up bullshit. There are about ten different ways we could actually do this." I looked it over and sighed. I knew it didn't matter much, but I was now kind of stressed over the sleepover and all I wanted was to talk about it with Marco. This guy was in the way, and being kind of obnoxious about it.

"Bullshit," Eren mumbled, leaning forwards. He sat opposite from me at the table, so he was getting kind of close. Instinctively, I leaned forwards as well. "I'm just trying to get this done."

My eyes narrowed, almost of their own accord. "It doesn't matter," I stated. The guy was getting on my nerves. "You're being pretty matter of fact about something that isn't fucking fact at all. At least I know what I'm doing." Something about the kid on the other side of the table really really bugged me, and I didn't really know why, but something in me wanted to hit him so hard he fell over.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Marco bite his lip. He did that a lot, I'd noticed, and they were starting to get chapped from the fall winds. "Guys, does it really-" I tried to relax a bit, but one does not simply uncoil the great Jean Kirschstein.

He was cut off by Eren. "Yeah it actually kind of does, or else we're going to have no consistency here and it'll be a mess." The guy had a look on his face that I really wanted to punch off as he looked at the brown-eyed guy beside me. Okay, yeah, I was not happy.

"Don't talk to Marco like that, you asshole," I crossed my arms. I was really seeing red. There was really nothing Marco had done to deserve being spoken to like that.

Armin piped up. "Eren, it says to measure amount relative to time, so how about we set each trial to thirty seconds and do three of them for consistency's sake, seeing how many we can catch?" He looked a little stressed.

"How about we-OW," Eren squeaked, as Armin kicked his leg. I snorted. _I like this kid._ The humor of seeing that made me nearly forget how pissed I was, and I nodded.

"That sounds like a good idea." I turned to my right. "You cool with that, Marco?"

He sighed, his face relieved. "Absolutely." He smiled at the short blonde across the table. "That sounds like a great idea." He looked back at me and sighed again, closing his eyes for a second, bringing his hand to his short hair, and opening them again. He nodded at me.

The rest of the class went relatively smoothly. Eren said a few things, but whenever anything really made me tense up Marco's hand immediately found its way to my shoulder and Armin's foot to Eren's leg. I tried my best to keep my mouth shut.

My mind kept going back to the sleepover though. Fuck. All I wanted was for it to go well.

~~~~~

I'd asked Jean to meet me at the school Friday night, after I'd gone home and thrown my things in a backpack slung across my shoulders. The sky was a greyish-blue, and I could hear birds flying south, flying in V's above my head while I fussed with my green sweater. This was what I got for being early like always. It was six fifty-five, and Jean and I had agreed to meet there at seven. I was kind of glad to have the time to think.

Honestly, when he'd asked me to come over, I'd freaked out a little inside. Jean, himself, freaked me out a little inside. I don't actually really know why. He was headstrong, kind of irritable, but he had a sort of honesty and understanding to him that I don't think I had. He was just... interesting, to say the least. Sighing, I shifted my bike from where it was leaning against a wall of the school, putting the kickstand down and leaning against the bricks myself.

Jean was the sort of guy who always seemed so sure of himself until you really took a better look. He was really kind of insecure, and I know I shouldn't say this, but it was a bit endearing. For example, when he'd admitted to me that he had never had a sleepover before--the problem we were going to remedy tonight--he'd had this sheepish look on his face that just looked kind of out of place on his angular features. The guy was all sharp at first sight but it was like his self-doubt softened him.

I thought for a few more minutes before he arrived. Of groceries, Mario Kart, and work. All of it poofed as I saw him round the corner of the school, gracefully breaking his bike with his shoe and turning in my direction. "Yo," he half-shouted. "You ready to go?"

Smiling, I sat back on my bike. "Yep," I nodded, getting on my bike. "Lead the way, Jean!" I smiled subconciously as he did a figure-eight to turn himself around. _The guy knew what he was doing with a bicycle_ , that much was obvious.

"Sure can do, Freckles," he assured, looking back at me with a smile. "This way," he said, heading west.

We biked slow and without speaking. The leaves had begun to fall, and we were riding slow enough and close enough to the side of the road where they tended to accumulate that I heard them crush and crackle beneath my tires. Looking at the houses around me, I started getting a little uncomfortable. We were in the nice part of town, a manicured suburb. You know, the kind of one that is basically manicured to not look perfectly manicured? With a nice little park and lots of old trees but perfect little houses with perfect lawns and perfect fences? It was something that I really wasn't used to at all.

While I was busy not paying attention I nearly missed Jean turning right onto another road. Afterwards, I decided the safest course of action was watching Jean as he rode, his orange shirt--a little too big for him--occasionally catching a bit of wind and exposing a sliver of his pale back.

The ride only lasted about thirty more seconds until we arrived at what I guessed was Jean's house by the way he rode his bike across the yard. I got off my bike and walked it down the sidewalk, instead. The house looked a little different from the others; the grass beside me was a little shaggy, and the air above me was filled by the branches of two large maple trees, their bright red leaves sticking out from the elms that marked most of the rest of the block. The house itself was yellow, with a white porch and a neglected garden. Jean leaned his bike against the wall between the house and a two-door garage that was separated from the house. "Well, we're here," Jean said, one hand tangled in the roots of his hair. "You can just lean your bike there, if you want."

Honestly though, the prospect of just leaning my bike somewhere was kind of foreign. "You don't have anywhere you can lock it?" I felt my eyebrows furrow. "Aren't you worried about somebody stealing them?"

I saw Jean's face grow confused for a second. "Uh, no? Not really." He looked away. "Though I guess we can lock them to one of the trees if you want." He faced the nearest maple.

I backtracked a little bit. I kept forgetting. _Good neighbourhoods probably don't have that problem because everyone can actually afford bikes._ "Uh, nah, it's okay. It's fine. Yeah." I forced a bit of a laugh. "I'm just being silly." I walked ahead of Jean towards his door and waited for him.

"Uhm." He hesitated for a second before walking to the door and pulling out his keys from a pocket of grey jeans. He turned back before sticking them inside the door. "You sure?"

"Yeah, it's fine."

His face didn't look very convinced, but he went ahead and opened the door up anyways. _Marco_ , I told myself. _You're being weird. Stop being weird._

"Mom, I'm home," he yelled as we got in the door.

"Mhmm," I heard a female voice from the other room drone.

"I've got a guest."

I felt the need to speak up. "Hi," I said, a little nervously.

A short, petite woman with brown hair and the same angular features as Jean burst into the hallway. "Well hello there!" She reached up, ruffling Jean's hair. "You didn't tell me you had friends!" He winced, unamused. I'll admit, it made me a little bit uncomfortable.

"Yes, mom, I do." He turned to me, looking suddenly tired. "Marco, mom. Mom, Marco." He started making his way to the stairs. "He's staying the night," he said without turning back. Not really knowing what to do, I smiled at Jean's mom and followed him, because really, what else are you supposed to do in that situation.

We went upstairs and hung a left, entering a room. Jean held the door and closed it behind me. "Well, uh, welcome," he said. Looking around, the room was very... plain. Most of the room consisted of cardboard boxes holding various things. One held up a TV, there were at least three more sitting on the desk, and some leaned against Jean's bed. I wandered towards the windows, which were almost blocked with black, thick curtains. "Sorry about the boxes and stuff." His hand ghosted towards his hair before falling back to his side. "I've never really liked unpacking."

I shrugged, sitting on a box which I ensured had only books in it. "It's fine. Neither do I, really." I smiled, leaning forward onto my knees. "A little plain, but let me guess. Moving sucks." I glanced upward at him.

Jean sat on the floor against his bed. "Yeah, well, it's hard to move things like posters and pictures." He pulled his legs to his chest, wrapping his arms around them. "They get ripped or folded or some shit." He glanced at his walls, which were a soft blue-grey. "You learn to deal. It's a bit plain, but hell, who really cares." He leaned back, straightening out his legs. "So," he said, looking at me. "Shall I set up the gamecube?"

"Totally," I said. I was kind of excited, actually. "Jean, do you remember how to play," I asked as he passed me a blue controller entwined in its own cord. I unwrapped it, as well as the green one Jean threw towards where he'd been sitting.

"No fucking clue," he said, plugging wires in to the TV that sat pretty much directly across the room.

"Oh, man," I said. "This is going to be good." I got up, pushed the box aside, and leaned back against the bed. "How about we do a round where I'm not there so you can get a feel for controls, and then we throw you into no mercy?"

Jean sat back beside me after turning the TV and gamecube on. "Sounds good."

I picked up the wires of the controllers and plugged them into the game console, then handed Jean the green controller. "Here you go."

"Might need this," Jean said, smiling down at it, pressing the start button.

Jean picked Bowser, and I picked Luigi. Good god, was he bad at this game. After a while, I decided to not use any powerups at all and let Jean try to get me. I still, unintentionally, won pretty much every game.

After about 10 games, Jean stopped actually competing and just laughed at himself. The highlight, by far, was Rainbow Road.

"Okay, so this is the most difficult track in the game," I said to him, while staring at the screen. "Because there are-"

"HOLY SHIT I FELL OFF GODDAMNIT."

'--no edges for most of the map." I chuckled, speeding along the track, nearly falling off as I rounded a corner. "Slow down a bit and you should be okay."

"Nope I fell again."

I sighed.

"Whoops. Again."

"Are you su-"

"I'm just going to keep falling intentionally."

And so Jean kept making himself fall off of the track until everyone else had finished, and then I took the controller from him and finished it, then handed the green controller back.

I looked at him afterwards and just burst out laughing. "Jean," I said, trying to become as deadpan as I could, "You are, quite possibly, the worst at Mario Kart that anyone has ever been ever in the history of mankind."

He tossed the controller towards the TV gently. "I will concede that." Getting up and stretching, he turned back to me. "Hey, so do you want anything to eat?"

"Uh," I thought for a second, then my stomach made up my mind for me. "Yeah. Yeah I really do."

"Well, the house is kind of empty for groceries, but there is a convenience store nearby." He jabbed his thumb towards the door.

"Cool."

We walked out to a nearby 711 where I got a bag of chips and a hot chocolate and he got a Dr. Pepper and some potato wedges.

When we got back, Jean unlocked the door and we walked in to hear a hushed argument. I turned to see Jean pale. "Upstairs, quick."

His tone made me want to not question what he'd asked, so I quietly went up the stairs after Jean into his room, closing the door softly behind us.

"Should I ask," I said softly to him as I sat down on his bed.

He looked at me, then leaned back, blank. "Not now. Now yet," he whispered hoarsely, laying down on the bed beside me.

We sat like that for a while, just breathing. After some hesitation, I stroked his hair; it was soft, and it seemed to help; his breathing slowed and eventually he fell asleep. I rested my hand on his forehead. He looked so different, sleeping. Calm. The ball of nerves that was Jean Kirschstein was instead enveloped in a ball of sleep and it was the most peaceful I had ever seen him. I smiled, got up, changed and decided to sleep on the floor.

We'd talk in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear, the next chapter is going to be happier than this one. But as always, constructive criticism is always cool and totally welcome! Let me know what you like/do not like, or any suggestions for what to write.


	4. Strawberries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jean complains about his kitchen, watches rain and has a bit of a talk about his dad with Marco. The two head off to Tina's for breakfast, where Marco realizes a few things and jokes about strawberries and... well, death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, ----- denotes Jean and ~~~~~ denotes Marco. 
> 
> I completely wrote this chapter the other day and then ended up losing all 4,500 words to the abyss that is my computer. I rewrote it all today, so if something doesn't make sense, PLEASE comment, telling me so. My brain does some strange things sometimes, establishing continuity where none exists. 
> 
> Also, if you're wondering about why I made the ages the way they are, with them being seventeen year old seniors, the answer is *:・ﾟ✧ CANADA✧・:*.
> 
> I jest. Also, you should never take me seriously. NOW. LET'S GET ON WITH IT, SHALL WE?

\-----

I woke up to the sound of rain, completely dressed, with no sense of what fucking time it was.

It was always difficult for me to figure out the time, as I kept my room pitch black most of the time. I sat where I was for a second, and then glanced at the digital clock on my bedside table. Eight in the morning. Kind of early for a Saturday, but hell, I'd fallen asleep earlier than planned.

Though I really didn't want to think about that.

I sat up, rubbing my eyes, throwing my legs over the side of the bed. Looking down, I saw the form of a sleeping Marco Bodt on the floor, snoring gently and cuddling a small box against his face. He looked cold; he shivered, bundled together on the floor. I watched his toes twitch and curl. _Even the tops of his feet have freckles, what the hell even is this._

I took the blanket from my bed and gently laid it over the sleeping teenager on my floor, watching as he snuggled into it and relaxed. I smiled. There was something about sleep that made people look... I dunno. Fragile somehow?

His face looked childlike almost, free of whatever made him worry. Marco tried his best to play off his problems like they were nothing and stay positive, but I knew there was something that kept bugging him. Like how he'd asked about locking his bike up the night before. It had thrown me off a little, to be honest, but that was just kind of the way we were. Going through friendship without really sharing many of our problems, and to be honest, I really wasn't sure I was ready to tell him about any of mine. We'll see how long that lasts.

I tiptoed around Marco towards one of the boxes near my dresser. They were really starting to become empty, and I even had to go to the drawers to get a pair of jeans and some boxers, before digging into a cardboard box for a dark green t-shirt.

I tiptoed back over my friend and towards the door, opening it gingerly and staying as still as was possible, avoiding the creaking of the floor and holding my breath. All I could hear was Marco's soft snoring behind me, at which I let out the breath I'd been holding in the form of a sigh of relief. _Thank fucking god._ No noise meant no parents. And no parents meant I didn't have to look at them or hear some form of bad news. At least, not yet, I supposed.

Tiptoeing down the hall, I made my way to the washroom where I showered, brushed my teeth and shaved, then, peeking my head out of the door, I walked downstairs to our damn excuse of a kitchen. It was more like a room full of kitchen appliances, because really what is the point if we don't have any fucking food to cook with it. Honestly. The giant picture window across from the table was covered with rain, the sky grey. _This shit is not going to let up soon_ , I thought to myself. _Nope._ Speaking of the table, I glanced at it to find a note sitting on it, alongside with my mom's debit card. I picked up the piece of paper by the corner, pulling it sideways to let the card slip off back on the corner, and then read it. My mom's handwriting stood out in dark blue marker, like it'd been written in a hurry.

**_Jean,_ **

**_This kitchen is kind of useless as a kitchen right now, so it'd be great if you could take my card and the car and go get groceries today. The PIN is 7301._ **

**_You can also use the card to go get breakfast. Bring that Marco guy with you if you want. He seems nice._ **

**_Attached is a short list of things to get._ **

**_Thanks,_ **

**_Mom._ **

Stapled to the paper was a list that was not short AT ALL, and I sighed, folding the two pieces together, slipping them into my back pocket. I was glad for it, to be honest. It meant I'd actually get some home-cooked food for once, and It'd be something to distract the great detective that was Marco; the freckled guy seemed to have a strange way with getting me to talk about things, whether it was getting me to tell him the mark on an assignment I'd done so shittily on it was unbelievable, or the time a horse once licked me on a school trip to a ranch. (He'd called me horseface ever since, and I will be the first to tell you it drove me up the wall.) Not to mention he actually seemed to give at least a fraction of a fuck about me. It was a dangerous combination.

_Welp. Time to go upstairs._

I walked up the stairs again and to the left, opening the door to my room. "Thanks for the blanket," Marco said, eyes open, but mainly in the same position as before. The box he'd been cuddling was pushed to arms length now, and I chuckled.

"No problem, Freckles. How'd you sleep?" I sat on the bed, crossing my arms.

He yawned, sitting up, the blanket forming a kind of nest around him. His dark hair stuck up all over the place. It was kind of... god, if anyone asks, I did NOT even THINK this, but it was kind of cute. "Kind of awfully, actually," he said, rolling his head and his shoulders. I heard a few cracks.

"So," he said, standing and turning to me, slight circles under his eyes, his voice low with sleepiness, "Do you want to talk about what happened with your parents?"

"Not really," I said, getting up and pulling the blinds off of the windows. I heard a slight hiss behind me. "Sorry," I said, turning back at Marco, who squinted against the sunlight. "Not a morning person, are we?"

"Few are." He stretched his arms behind his head. "What's for breakfast?"

I held up the debit card. "This dumb piece of plastic, apparently." He rolled his eyes at me. "Kidding, kidding... Fine, we're supposed to go and get breakfast with this. Also groceries, if you wanna come with me?"

The guy looked kind of dumbstruck. "So," he said, confused, "Your parents just trust you with their debit card?"

"Uh, yeah?" I shrugged. "We have no food in the house, and I don't really have a job. How else am I supposed to eat?"

Marco sighed. "I guess the idea of trusting your kids with money is one that's kind of foreign to me."

"Better than trusting the adults in this house," I said softly, sitting on the bed.

Marco sat beside me. I think he kind of sensed where it was going. "Yeah?" He said, shaking the sleep off of his face and replacing it with kind concern.

Okay, so I think some explaining is necessary here. I've always had a policy with myself. Be honest, but do not over-share. Because one, _Jean, people do not care about your problems._ Two, I hate being the person to sit there complaining. And also, I kind of didn't want to be laughed at, but I guess that went with the first point. But honestly, some part of me just kind of went 'fuck it', and words started spilling out of my mouth.

"Yeah, well, my dad's an architectural engineer, so he earns a crapton of money, right?" He nodded, the perfect listener. "And so, he keeps moving in pursuit of contracts, and he'll move really far for the richer ones because we kind of need the money." I breathed in heavily. "We really wouldn't have to move for the bigger ones if we had our shit together. Truth is, the reason I keep moving is that my dad has this tendency to gamble away most of what we own." My eyes closed of their own accord. _I am not going to lose it. I am not going to lose it._ An arm reached around me, warming my shoulders.

"I have never had any friends since the first grade when this other kid had a different pokemon game and we traded once in a while. And I'm not sure if that even counts. I have no idea if I have any money for college, so I am working my fucking ass off to get some damn scholarships to go to school for lord knows what. And is all because that fucking dickwad has some idea that he's going to win a game of poker some day." The entire thing was said in one giant sentence, and I took a huge breath afterwards, as Marco's other arm reached around my torso.

"Shhhh," he said, rubbing relaxing little circles on my back as I breathed, jagged. _I AM NOT GOING TO LOSE IT. I AM NOT GOING TO LOSE IT._

And I didn't, thank god. Focusing on the sound of my own breathing as well as Marco's, I sat still for a while.

"The house is a lease, you know?" I said.

"Hmm?" he said.

"The house is only leased for a year. But by the end of that I'll be going somewhere for school." I felt my throat tighten a little as Marco sat back beside me. "And you know, I really don't want to move again, but I may be forced to for school. And I don't want to be dragged around with my parents for the sake of money, either." Marco's eyebrows knitted together, and his smile was sympathetic.

"Well, how old are you now," he asked, placing his hand on my back again.

"Eighteen in April," I managed to choke out.

"See? You don't have to stay with them at all, really. You could move out right now if you wanted to," he said in a kind of empty voice. "If you had your parents' permission, that is." He looked back at me and smiled. "I guess what I'm trying to say is that you don't necessarily have to put up with any of this. Especially once you're eighteen and can legally move out on your own without them telling you you can." He sounded kind of hollow, to be honest, and it scared me a little. "You won't have to deal with your parents any longer."

"Thank you, Marco."

"For what?" he asked, his voice normal again, tilting his head and smiling a little, his hand resting on my shoulder.

"For being my friend. We are friends, right?" I just kind of needed to hear it then. Solid proof that I actually had someone who gave a shit.

To my surprise, he laughed, and it sounded like a bell. "I spent like two hours yesterday kicking your butt at Mario Kart, slept on your floor, and now we're sitting here talking about feelings." He smiled at me, one of the nicest things I'd ever seen, followed by one of the nicest things I'd ever heard. "Of course I'm your friend."

I had one of those moments, at that point, where you just kind of want to scream and run around and fall over you're so happy. Luckily, I managed to contain it all to a small smile. "Awesome."

"Well," he said, getting off of the bed, "Now that we've had that chat, can I use your shower?" He picked up his bag from the floor, slinging it over his shoulder.

"Uh? Yeah, sure." I crossed my legs and leaned back against my wall as he left the room, and his footsteps creaked down the hallway. "Second door on the left."

"Thanks," his voice said from the hallway. A few minutes later, I heard him singing in the shower. _Figures, the dork._

I looked out the window from where I had sat. It had started to absolutely pour. How fucking appropriate.

~~~~~

Jean and I drove through the rain towards a place called Tina's, a restaurant I'd gone to with my mom all the time when I was young. "It's one of my favorite places," I said, turning to him while he drove, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.

"Why's that?"

Well, mainly because... "The entire front of the place is made of windows."

"And?" Jean turned his head in my direction, not taking his eyes off the road as he did so.

"I absolutely love rain!" I really did. The way everything smelled, the different colored light, the sounds that could be heard under a roof. "And from inside a restaurant, eating a very very good breakfast, I might add, is prefect way to watch it, Jean." I watched the water trail down the windshield, blocking the view in between swipes of the wipers. As I glanced sideways, I saw that Jean was as well, but he was having a heck of a lot more trouble.

"Wow, these wipers are absolute shit," he mumbled, squinting through the water. "Fuck."

"Left turn," I said as we got to an intersection.

"Gotcha," he said, flipping his signal on and turning.

I saw a restaurant up the street that really looked a little like a fast food place with the windows, but you could instantly tell it wasn't. Most fast food joints looked a little nicer than this. Decorated with a neon sign that had probably burnt out years ago, Tina's looked much like I remembered. "That's where we're going," I said before we got to the turnoff into the parking lot. Jean parked it as close to the door as we could get without being in a handicapped zone, and I turned to him. I really wished I had a raincoat. Jean had one though. "So," I said, looking at the huge raindrops pelting the door. "How is this going to work?"

"How about," Jean said, leaning back into his seat after sitting up straight for so long, "We use the raincoat as an umbrella? I'll walk around and get you and we'll go inside?"

I looked back at the rain. "Sure," I said, turning to Jean again. "That sounds like a good idea." I kept my eyes trained on the window as Jean wrestled his rain coat as well as he could with the limited space. When I looked back, his shirt had ridden up his torso in the process, and I turned away so quickly I felt my neck crack. Didn't really help that my neck felt awful from sleeping on the floor the night before. Oh well.

Jean finally took his grey raincoat and extended it above him like a makeshift umbrella, turning to me, and letting out a big breath. "Let's just hope we get out of this alive," he said with a grin, opening the door slightly, kicking it the rest of the way with a battle cry. Meanwhile, I was sitting here giggling my butt off while he shut the door and ran around the car like we were in grave danger. He opened my door for me and took my arm, half-dragging me out of the car. "RUN, SON. RUN WHILE YOUR LEGS WILL STILL CARRY YOU." Closing the door, I grabbed one half of the jacket and he kept his hand wrapped around my wrist while we ran through the rain to the door. He held it open for me, standing watch outside while I hurried through it, then followed me inside.

He turned his head back, watching the rain pelt the windows and tucked his raincoat under his arm for a few seconds, and his breathing was deep from the manic running he'd just done. I watched his eyes, hazel, lose focus for a second before he realized that his hand was still on my wrist, walking abruptly ahead of me towards a two-person table nearby.

I was glad his back was behind me, because I wish I could blame the stupid blush on my face on coming in to warmth from the cold rain. I wasn't really sure what had caused it, but I felt warmth lingering where Jean's fingers had been a second before and rubbed at it with my opposite hand while I moved to sit down.

The place was lit with florescent lighting, and I saw one of the lights in the corner flicker. The tiles beneath my feet were a bit grimy, and the paint on the walls looked a little faded. The place had seen much better days, but then again, so had I. It seemed strangely appropriate.

We sat beside the window, and I smiled, watching rain trail beside me, placing my finger along the glass. "Man, I haven't been here in what feels like years," I admitted, tracing a raindrop down the windowpane as I did so. The sky was starting to look kind of green, and I could hear thunder in the distance.

"That's because you haven't," came a familiar voice behind me. Sure enough, it belonged to a short woman with grey hair bundled up in a sort of beehive style on top of her head, bright red lips curled into a half-smile. "Long time no see, Marco."

"Tina!" I found myself grinning as I greeted her. "How've you been? You haven't aged a day!" Well, the last part wasn't necessarily true, but she was an old friend and I felt the need to be nice.

She laughed, knowing just how much of a lie I'd told. "I'm going to have to call you a liar for that one, hun." She smiled. "So, who's your friend?"

"Oh," I said, not realizing I'd been kind of impolite. "Tina, this is Jean. Jean, this is the owner, Tina."

"It's great to meet you," Jean said, smiling. It looked kind of out of character for him to be so polite, but he was trying. And I was grateful for that. For some reason it seemed important in my head that Tina liked Jean, and he was doing a good job. The smile only looked like five percent forced.

"Nice to meet you too, sweetie. Any friend of Marco's is a friend of mine," she said, winking at me. "Anyways, what do you kids want to drink?" She looked at Jean first.

"Uhm, just some coffee please." He smiled again, and though the expression looked kind of odd on him, I really liked it. His eyes crinkled a little, and his eyebrows settled into a more neutral expression than the either skeptical or frustrated way they seemed to knit themselves together most of the time. I wished I could see him like that more often, but without that five percent forced. I wished he'd just smile like that more often. The only other time I'd seen a true smile on him had been that morning.

I didn't have much time to think about that though, as Tina then turned to me and said, "And you?"

"Chocolate milk," I said, and I felt my ears turn a little red.

"Sure," she said, jotting it down, then closed her notebook. "I'll be right back with that and to take your orders in a few minutes."

Jean smiled after her, then after she was gone, old Jean returned and he looked at me with a smirk. "Chocolate milk?"

"Hey," I said. "I used to come here all the time, and you know what, that's what I got. Sue me if I felt nostalgic this morning..." Still, I felt the blush on me. Yeah, getting a drink made basically for a five year old was a little bit childish, but I was a creature of habit.

"I can guess why. A place you used to go all the time, a person you used to see, brings back memories. Or at least I would presume." He rested his chin on one hand, holding the menu in front of him with the other. "So, anything here I should stay away from?"

"Nope," I said. "Pretty much everything here is good," I said, picking up and scanning the laminated paper myself. I looked at my old reliable, and it would pretty much do, with one exception. _I'm going to have to figure out something to switch with the bacon... she'd probably do a substitution for me, right?_ I felt guilty enough about accepting a meal from Jean without wasting part of the meal itself. Yeah, that should work.

I finished my thoughts and put my menu on the table right when Tina returned with our drinks, placing a basket of creams in front of Jean with his coffee and a chocolate milk in front of me. "There," she said, wedging the platter she'd been using between her side and her elbow as she dug out the notebook again. "So then, what'll it be?"

I nodded at Jean, who was looking at me with an expression that said something along the lines of ' _who's first_ '. "I'll have bacon and eggs please, and I'd like my eggs scrambled."

"And how would you like your toast, dear?"

"Uh..." I heard him curse a little under his breath, looking back at the menu. "Just white'll be fine." He placed his menu on top of mine.

Tina nodded and then looked at me. "Strawberry waffles," I said, smiling. "Uhm, but is it okay if I could just have some extra fruit instead of the bacon please?" I really didn't want to be a pain, but I also didn't want to waste. One outweighed the other in my head.

"Sure," she said, smiling at me. "Do you just want some extra strawberries?" She jotted some stuff down in her notepad.

"That'd be great!" I grinned as she finished writing, clicked her pen and put both into her apron pocket.

"I'll be back with that in about ten minutes," she said, smiling.

"Thanks," Jean said, nodding at her before she left.

I stirred my chocolate milk with my straw and watched Jean put a few creams into his coffee, then start leafing through the colorful sweetener packets on the edge of the table. "So, why no bacon?" he asked, glancing up from his sugar hunt.

 _I swear he knows this. I mean he must've known that, well..._ "I'm a vegetarian?" I said, more a question than a statement, really.

He tore a packet of sugar and poured it into his coffee. "How the hell did I not know that," he said, his eyebrows furrowed. "I feel like I should've known that."

"It's cool, most people don't really know until I tell them." I scratched my cheek and took a sip of my milk.

"Can I ask why?"

"I dunno, whenever I eat meat I think about how I'd feel if I were cut in half and eaten and I just get kind of uncomfortable." This was true. An image of a giant human taking a bite out of me flicked across my mind and I immediately tried to wipe the picture from my head.

"That's cool. Seriously though, why the hell didn't I know that." He put his hand in his hair again, like he tended to do when nervous or frustrated, his long fingers curling around the light brown strands.

I laughed. "First the rain, and now this." I dropped my straw back into my cup and moved it a few inches away so I could put my elbows on the table. "I mean, it feels like I know you so well, but all of these little things keep popping up so fast. Not to mention big things." My mind flipped to what he'd told me that morning again, about his dad. I definitely understood how it felt to have your father to blame for most of your problems, but to not even have the chance at friends because of their stupid decisions? At least I'd had that. I decided to keep it light, though. "I mean, I could just now discover that you're deathly allergic to strawberries and I've just doomed you to a gruesome death."

"Shellfish, actually. But you get one point though, you got the first letter right." The last half was said with sarcasm and a smirk.

"Oh yeah?" I said, feeling kind of playful. "It totally does. I dare you to say otherwise."

"Sure," he said, giving me a stupid grin. "It totally does not fucking count at all, Marco."

I smiled when he said my name, then gasped over-dramatically. "You didn't!" I feigned swooning. "Say it again, HORSEFACE."

Tina came with our food after a few more minutes, and the meal went kind of like that as well. Silly and kind of stupid. I giggled a few times and each time I had to convince Jean that I was in fact NOT a thirteen year old girl in disguise. Stupid high voice.

At the end of the meal, Jean went to go pay near the kitchen with his debit card, and I draped Jean's jacket over my arm as I waited by the door. "I approve," I heard Tina say from behind me, and I jumped.

"Ugh-what?" I said, about two octaves higher than my usual voice. "What do you mean?"

"He's cute and he's polite too. I approve." When I made nothing but a squeaking noise, she continued. "Oh come, on," the woman said, giving me a knowing smile. "Do you think I didn't see the hand holding thing at the door earlier? I ain't nobody's fool." She winked at me. Oh god. "Well, I hope you come back more often, I don't see you nearly enough. Gotta go, work to do, people to help. Goodbye!" The woman walked off, coffee pot in hand, as if she hadn't completely--I don't even know the term--well, I feel like the phrase 'rocket my world' was applicable.

I must've been red as a tomato when Jean came back, because he looked at me with an odd expression on his face. "Are you okay?"

Grabbing my wrist, I really couldn't do much more than swallow and say "Let's go."

"Okay?" Jean said, and I took out the jacket, handing him half as we both put it above our heads, looking at the thunder and rain outside. "We should go get an umbrella or something," he said as we walked in unison out the door.

I found myself a little disappointed he didn't grab my wrist the way he had before.

And, in a way that confused and frightened me, even more disappointed that he didn't hold my hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See, that wasn't so bad, was it? We got through some sad today, then to the happy. It's like the literary version of eating your vegetables. Has to happen, you know. Next chapter will be a little more touching again, though I may change my mind. I do that a lot. We'll see when I get it up. I'm going to be stupid busy the next few weeks


End file.
